The Siren's Stone
by subduedfangirl
Summary: [Mermaid AU] A chance encounter with two humans and its violent end jump start Hanji's obsession with the world beyond the sea and a desire to break away from mermaid superstitions. Her dream comes true when a storm washes her up on a beach resort, where Hanji finds herself drawn to a grumpy lifeguard. However, the price to become human is more than Hanji ever expected.
1. Superstitions

**A/N: **I wasn't planning on writing anything like this at all, but then an idea fell out of the sky a few weeks ago and just wouldn't let my imagination go... A week of outlining and several thousand words later, I had to admit that this was really happening!

A quick note on the rating: **the M rating currently only applies for the first chapter. The rest of the story as planned (so far) is at about a T rating and does not have a lot of violence.**

Also, please keep in mind that since this is an AU, the characterizations may be slightly different from canon. I have tried my best to keep the characters recognizable in their new surroundings, but some things may be slightly different due to the fact that these characters have lead different lives than in canon. That said, if you feel that I am mischaracterizing anyone, please let me know!

Thank you for reading through this long note! I hope that you enjoy the first chapter!

* * *

The ocean was quiet, but not quite still.

Hanji could only hear the movement of the water as she swam forward, flowing over her tail. The reef just below her extended in all directions, creating an illusion of endlessness. A rainbow of reds, blues, and greens from the coral shone between the swaying leaves of kelp and other sea plants as she passed by. The only thing reminding Hanji that the reef indeed had an end were the far-off outlines of sunken human ships, some of them so old that they were becoming reefs as well.

Hanji stopped, dipping her tail towards the sea floor to slow her momentum. Her hair billowed into her vision for a moment and then settled along with the water. Hanji looked around, checking to see if she could spot the telltale flash of sunlight on scales. This was the only part of the reef that didn't have merpeople living inside. Here, Hanji could be alone. But that didn't mean that it was a secret from the rest of the pod.

Satisfied that no one was coming, Hanji lifted her tail until she was floating horizontal to the surface. The sun flickered down at her, its light bouncing and shifting with each passing second. Hanji held up a hand towards it, half shielding her eyes, half reaching—

Hanji glanced around again, just to be sure, and set her mouth in a determined line. Today would be the day she would find out why the surface was banned. The real reason, not just because the rest of the pod believed in a story. With a powerful stroke of her tail, Hanji rose to the surface.

The closer she got, the clearer the surface because, to the point that she almost wasn't sure where it was. For the first time in Hanji's life, the sun solidified into a bright circle that hurt to look at. She began to feel a different kind of current pushing and pulling at her body, enough to rock her from side to side but not enough to move her from her place in the water. Waves, she thought. She didn't know that they could be so small.

Hanji stopped before the top of her head could make contact with the surface. She reached up and dragged her fingertips across it, spreading ripples that were swept away by the next roll of the water. It felt smoother than the untouched sand on the ocean floor. Hanji smiled, drawing back a bit so that she could shoot up through the surface and—

Something between a rumble and a buzz echoed through the water. Hanji's head quickly turned as the flow of the water became rougher, waves beginning to crash together with a blur of white foam. She dove down to get away from it, watching at a spot between the surface and the reef as the source of the noise came closer. The shadow cutting across the top of the ocean was familiar.

The boat passed over her, leaving a trail of foam in its wake and continuing to make that loud noise. Hanji wondered how long it would take it to dip underneath the waves, but it kept going. Her interest was rising with every second. She'd only seen boats sink. How long would this one be able to float? Hanji flicked her tail and followed it.

As a much younger mermaid, Hanji had watched dozens of human's boats sink down to the merpeople's depths from the rolling, stormy surface above. She'd watched the boat's lights flicker and die as her mother held her close, the pod staying far away from the wreck until the torrent of bubbles ceased. It was the humans' fate to go down with their ships. The merpeople never interfered.

Hanji had many memories from her childhood of her parents taking her hands, linking with the rest of their pod in a wide circle around the shipwrecks, singing a mournful song that echoed for miles under the water.

"Why do we sing?"

"Out of respect."

But Hanji was sure now that it was nothing more than a long-standing tradition. The merpeople didn't respect anything about humans. In fact, the pod was terrified of them. After every shipwreck, her mother would remind her to always stay away from humans, and to never breach the surface.

"Why?"

"Your tail will split in two, and you will die."

The boat turned a little, and Hanji changed her direction as well. Out of the corner of her eye she could see various members of her pod ducking down underneath the reef, out of sight. She knew that some of them would worry about the ship sinking and crashing right on top of their home. This place was the one consistent stop in their migrations. Who knew how long it would take to find a reef big enough to house their pod again?

Hanji kept trailing behind the shadow of the boat. All of the other ships had gone down in storms. Perhaps this one would be different.

It was heading for the pillar of dark volcanic rock just past one of the far ends of the reef. Several smaller pillars jutted out of the sea floor around it, but the biggest one broke the surface, its outline wavering and indistinct as soon as it left the water. Plants and animals even more colorful than the ones in the merpeople's reef thrived off of the rock, but the pod would have nothing to do with the area. It touched the surface, so therefore it was dangerous.

The boat stopped in the center of the circle of pillars. Hanji swam behind one of the shorter ones, peering around the rock to see what the boat would do next. The minutes passed, but nothing happened. Hanji watched the small waves lap against the sides of the boat, wondering if she'd wasted her time.

Then, just as she glanced away, two splashes come off the side of the boat, one after the other. She looked back just in time to see two dark figures emerge from the fading streams of bubbles. Hanji's arms shook with excitement, her tail twitching to the same rhythm, an excited squeal escaping her lips. There was no mistaking it. Those were humans. Actual, live humans.

Hanji had only seen dead humans before. Before this moment, she'd thought of them as puffy and pale and lifeless. The only thing interesting about them was an extra pair of arms where their tails should be, with strange flat hands and stubby fingers on the second set that didn't seem useful for anything. As far as Hanji could tell, the only thing humans could do was drown. She'd been far more interested in the taboo against the surface.

These humans were different. They moved awkwardly in the water, tethered to the boat by long black ropes. Their clothing was also black and skin-tight, with some stripes of blue around the joints and down the sides of their arms. They had long fins attached to their second set of arms in a crude approximation of a tail, and a reflective covering wrapped around their eyes. There was a protruding circle where human mouths normally were, releasing bubbles in a set rhythm like a heartbeat. As one of them moved their fins to spin in a slow circle, Hanji caught sight of a long silver rock attached to their back. She'd never seen humans wear things like that, but she'd also never seen live humans underwater for this long either. Hanji felt a flush of secondhand pride. The humans had figured out how to go underwater without drowning!

The way they swam made it clear that they weren't born to stay in the water, but Hanji admired how fast they adapted to the right movements. She couldn't make out their faces, but their hair was still visible around everything they were wearing, and their body types set them apart.

One was a human male, Hanji was sure, with short hair so light it looked almost silver. He was careful and deliberate in his movements, looking around the area while staying in one place, his legs kicking in small circles. The other was a female, possibly younger than the other one, but Hanji had never been good at guessing human ages. She had longer red hair that was a bright as the sea plants surrounding them, and Hanji smiled at the way she made use of her fake fins, twirling in the water and holding out her arms. She reminded her of some of the younger mermaids in the pod.

One made a hand motion at the other, catching their attention and pointing down. Hanji wondered why they didn't just speak, but then realized that all the stuff on their faces must get in the way. She pressed closer to the rock as they dove down, determined to watch them as long as she could before revealing herself.

The two passed Hanji and continued on to the black rock below where the colorful fish and plants waited, continuing to communicate through hand signals. The redhead reached out her hands towards an anemone, but before Hanji could call out, she simply cupped her hands in the space around it, nodding her head in apparent admiration. Meanwhile, the silver-haired boy followed a small school of fish that hadn't fled when the humans had appeared in the water, tracing lazy circles around one of the pillars.

Hanji was content just watching them, seeing them move through the water, clearly enjoying themselves. The two never strayed far apart from each other even though they examined different things, holding a thumb up at each other every now and again, a gesture that Hanji had never seen before. She was learning new things about humans with every passing moment, to the point that she almost didn't want to reveal herself if that meant that the humans could show her more.

The girl had started examining the pillars, swimming up and down and around them in the space of a few minutes before moving on to the next. She was getting closer. Hanji tensed, and then forced herself to relax. She didn't want to scare the human. Hanji gripped the edges of the rock pillar, ready to push herself out into the open once the redhead came around the next turn, hoping that she wouldn't be able to hear how hard her heart was beating.

A trail of bubbles floated out three pillars away, and Hanji saw the human begin to drift into sight—

—When a shrill scream and a flash of silver punched her out of view.

Hanji's gills flared and her fins stood on end. A monster.

The human girl was struggling against it, but the blood was already rising in a cloud around them. The fake black fins snapped off as she kicked against the rock, pushed down by a thrashing silver tail that had a deep cleft down its middle.

Hanji shook off the shock and plunged towards them, reaching through the rising blood to where she knew that she would find a neck and pulled. The snarling face of the monster rose up to met her, smooth silver scales covering its face. The shape of its body was similar to merpeople and humans, but its mindless predator nature caused the merpeople to only view them as monsters. Its eyes looked like dirty pearls, bulbous and pale. It had no nose, only slits, and several rows of sharp teeth in it's too-wide mouth.

Bits of flesh still clung to the points of its teeth as it shrieked at her, making the bile rise in Hanji's throat. It twisted its entire body, flailing its tail at her and swinging both taloned hands towards her eyes. Hanji tightened her grip around the monster's neck and swung it towards the side of the pillar, its skull connecting with a crack that echoed through the water. Black blood streamed out of its head, mixing with the red, and Hanji dropped the limp body, watching the monster's corpse sink to the sandy floor.

Another shriek sounded, and Hanji looked up to see two more monsters swooping in towards the other human, one ripping through the cord that connected him to the boat, the other pinning his arms to his sides before sinking its teeth into the strange silver rock on his back. Bubbles gushed from the opening, flipping the human over, but there wasn't enough force to knock the monster off.

Hanji sped towards him, flipping her tail around to hit the monster in the face. It connected, and she heard another crack—its neck this time—but the third monster was heading towards them. Hanji flipped over, trying to swim in the right direction to cut it off, but the monster was too fast. It sunk its teeth into the human's midsection, and for a second Hanji could see past the reflective covering into his eyes—the shock, the fear. The monster sunk its teeth in deeper and pulled—Hanji didn't break her gaze with the human as the light in his eyes left him and the water around her turned an even darker red.

She slammed into its forked tail with her own, making it let go of its prey with a snarl. Hanji hit the monster again and again, with her tail and her fists. She grabbed its clawed hands and grappled with it, spinning in the water as it snapped its jaws inches from her face.

They crashed into a pillar, kicking up sand into a cloud around them. Hanji heard a yelp of pain and swam out of the cloud to see the monster swimming away, one half of its strange tail broken and bleeding.

Hanji was still shaking. For a moment, she thought about following it to make sure that it didn't head towards the pod, but then remembered that she was outside the bounds of the reef. After watching it disappear into the blue, Hanji slowly turned around, feeling like she was weighed down with every movement.

The humans had learned to breathe underwater, but they couldn't defend themselves against monsters.

Afterwards, Hanji could never remember how she'd retrieved the human's bodies. The next thing she knew, she was cradling both of them against her. The boy's torso had almost been ripped in two. The girl was missing most of her neck. Even though they had gone still, their blood still flowed out, mixing in the water.

They were the same as the other humans now. Pale. Lifeless.

But even though Hanji had only watched them, she knew that they didn't deserve to lie forgotten in the ocean.

Hanji looked up at the shadow of the boat and began to swim upwards.

The air stung. Hanji had to take another few quick gasps to keep herself from choking on it, her gills flapping. Air wasn't even close to as smooth as water, and for a second Hanji wondered how humans could stand it.

The boat bobbed on the water the same way that she had just below the surface only a few minutes ago—only a few minutes ago, was that possible?—the waves lapping against the hull with a dull thumping noise. Hanji pushed the bodies towards the boat, realizing that she wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish. But she couldn't just leave them in the water. The blood would attract more monsters soon enough.

A shuffling sound came from the other side of the boat, and Hanji ducked down into the water up to her nose out of instinct. A voice soon followed, screaming across the water, broken and raw. "Isabel! Farlan!"

Hanji's heart squeezed into itself, and her eyes burned as her vision went fuzzy. Big drops of water started to fall from her eyes. Hanji had never cried before. Merpeople were always surrounded by water. They had no concept of tears. In another situation, Hanji would've been fascinated by her body's response. However, in the moment she could only think of the corpses floating next to her. They had names. Isabel. Farlan.

There was more noise, and a figure came into view at the front of the boat, dark-haired with a pale shirt. Hanji was back below the water's surface before she could see the human's face.

She knew that she should leave, but she couldn't. Hanji swam to the side of the boat, hair trailing across the surface, and watched as a pair of hands pulled the bodies—Isabel and Farlan—out of the blood-stained water. She pressed her hands to her mouth, still feeling the strange burning in her eyes.

The minutes passed, and still Hanji didn't leave. Part of her mind told her to go back to warn the pod about the monsters—in fact, she was becoming a target herself, this close to the clouds of blood—but she couldn't. Hanji wasn't sure what she was waiting for, but she needed some kind of final confirmation that she'd done the right thing.

Something appeared on the side of the boat. It was the dark haired figure again. Even this close to the surface, Hanji still couldn't make out a face thinks to the movement of the small waves. They clutched the boat's railing, head hanging down. Hanji drew closer to the surface, wondering if explaining monsters to the human might—

Her tail broke the surface with a splash.

The human's head jerked up, and Hanji saw their body stiffen. She realized that blood was still clinging to her, the waves taking bit by bit off in long, kelp-like strands. It was pooling on the surface. Hanji was sure that the human could see it, and in the next second she realized that they could see her as well as she could see them. What were they going to do?

Hanji bolted through the water right when she heard the angry yell, almost missing the splash of something thrown after her. She didn't look back to see what it was. She didn't slow down at all, Hanji's heart beating so hard her body shook right down to her scales.

But even with the sadness of it all, even with the blood still on her arms, Hanji couldn't help smiling. Her tail was intact. She'd seen live humans. Her parents and her pod had been wrong all along.

The shadows of the shipwrecks surrounding the reef seemed like they were calling out to her. Hanji could feel a new sense of purpose all the way down to her scales. She wouldn't let this moment go to waste. She was going to find out the truth about humans, no matter what her pod thought.

The last bit of blood lifted from her arms, and Hanji heard the rumbling of the human's boat far away. Next time, she promised herself, it would end differently.


	2. Glow

**A/N: **I don't know how this chapter got so long. I really don't. It's only a few lines in my outline... Yet somehow that turned into over six thousand words. The only excuse that I have is that this sets up one of the major plot points that we'll be dealing with later. I swear that there will be lifeguard Levi in the next chapter. Really!

Anyway, I want to thank everyone who's read and left comments so far! I'm glad that you enjoyed the first chapter! I hope that you will enjoy this long one as well.

* * *

The ray of sunlight moved off the edge of her page. Hanji frowned, shifting her weight so that she could hold the book out further, stretching her arms until the yellowed margins glowed golden under the light again. Part of the rock wall dug into her shoulder, but Hanji wasn't going to let an uncomfortable position stop her from reading. She could hear the rhythm of the waves hitting the rock outside, and the water lapped against her tail with the same beat.

Hanji had found this small cave through an entrance underwater, on the side of the largest rock pillar where she'd seen the humans several migrations ago. There was only enough room for her to sit and lean against the rock, leaving half of her tail submerged in the water. However, this way she could go above the surface in peace. The top of the pillar was broken enough to let some light in, and if Hanji craned her neck, she could see the sky and clouds beyond. The only other thing within the cave was an old chest covered in strips of dead seaweed and barnacles, the wood warped and discolored with age. It rested on a stony outcropping that acted as a natural shelf right next to her, high enough to be out of reach of the water, but not out of reach.

Hanji squinted at the book, readjusting her grip so that she could hold it with one hand, reaching into the chest with the other. She groped around inside until her finger brushed against a familiar cover. Hanji lifted out a small blue book, trying to open it with one hand and failing. Accepting defeat, Hanji pulled the first book out of the sunlight, leaning it against a dry part of the rock. She was always afraid of doing more damage to the books, and tried to keep them from being exposed to more water. The pages on this one had wavy edges, and the ink had smeared in places, but it was still intact. Hanji just had to be careful when she turned the pages.

Hands now free, Hanji opened the blue book, which turned to the page that she looked at the most. The book was filled with pictures that had words printed under them, and it was her key to reading the strange markings inside the human's books. This page had the first two pictures that she'd recognized—"fish" and "person/human."

Hanji flipped through the pages, glancing between the two books, trying to see if anything matched the unfamiliar word on the page. This was how she unlocked the code of the human symbols, piece by piece, saying them out loud. The blue book wasn't perfect—Hanji had yet to decode an entire sentence—but she was sure that she understood the general meaning.

Hanji stopped when she found a word that looked the same, holding the blue book next to the other one to compare. The word was "sailor." Hanji put the blue book down and picked up the other one, holding it out towards the light once again. She recognized three words now—"sailor," "boat," and "living." That last one had taken her several months of puzzling over and trying to pronounce out loud before she'd figured it out. Hanji sucked in the side of her lip, glancing at the blue book out of the corner of her eye. The picture above "sailor" showed a human wearing white clothes and a piece of cloth tied around their neck. Was this a type of human, the way merpeople had different colored scales?

She looked back at the book. "Sailor," "boat," and "living"… Were sailors humans that lived on boats? Hanji sighed. That couldn't be it. The drowned humans had never worn clothing like that. Her mind drifted, and before she could stop herself, Hanji could see the terrified eyes before the monsters tore into his torso—

The light inside the cave dimmed, snapping her out of it. Hanji frowned up at the hole in the pillar. A gray cloud had blocked out the sun. Hanji took a deep breath, pushing away the thoughts of the dead humans. It had been several migrations since then. There wasn't any point in dwelling on it now.

Hanji closed the books, placing the blue one on top. She picked set them inside the chest with slow, careful movements, making sure that the rock, checking that they wouldn't move around in case the chest fell. Hanji shut the lid of the chest and pushed off from the rock, dropping back down into the water. It always took her a second to readjust to how quiet water was compared to air. The water magnified some noises, while others you couldn't hear at all. But the movement of air around her ears above the surface made constant noise, and Hanji often wondered if the humans were used to it.

She drifted out of the dark passageway and into the circle of pillars. The place hadn't changed that day. The only thing that marked what had happened was a new growth of coral, covered with red and white sea plants. Hanji headed towards it, making a quick circle to see if all the plants were healthy. She touched a red one towards the bottom that was developing some brown spots. Maybe it just needed a little more light—

"_Hanji!_"

She tensed, arms drawing in to her sides before she recognized the voice. Hanji looked up to see a merman heading her way from the direction of the reef. She smiled, swimming up to meet him. "Don't surprise me like that, Moblit!" Hanji shouted, smiling.

Moblit dipped his tail to stop while Hanji swam to him, blue scales flashing in the light in contrast to her green tail. He eyed the circle of pillars with a shudder, crossing his arms when Hanji reached him. "How many times do I have remind you that it isn't safe over there?" Moblit said.

Hanji laughed. "And how many times have I told you that you worry too much?" She swam in a slow circle around him and saw his jaw tighten. "Aw, c'mon, Moblit. I know what I'm doing. I come back every day in one piece, don't I?"

Moblit turned his head, trying to keep track of her as she circled him. "That's the problem! You shouldn't know what to do out there, you should stay where it's safe!" He gave up trying to turn his head over his shoulder and spun around to keep Hanji in view. "And this isn't just about something happening to you. What if you're so caught up in…whatever it is, you don't notice what's going on around you? Do you even know that a storm's coming?"

Hanji flipped onto her back, looking towards the surface. It had changed from a clear blue to a cloudy gray. "Huh. I thought it was kind of dark," she said.

"That's exactly what I mean!" Moblit said, voice cracking.

Hanji waved a hand at him, folding the other under her head. "I keep telling you that it's fine, Moblit. Some stormy water isn't that scary."

"You could get carried away to who knows where," Moblit answered. "Maybe even drift straight into a monster's nest."

Hanji snorted. "That's what you're scared of? We don't even know if monsters have nests."

"Well… Maybe you should research that instead of all this human stuff," Moblit said. Hanji caught a glimpse of his smirk as she turned another slow circle.

"Hmm… That _could_ be exciting…" Hanji said, pretending to consider it.

Moblit turned his head so fast that Hanji was surprised that she didn't hear a snap. "Putting yourself in danger is _exciting_ to you?"

"I'm kidding, Moblit. I don't care about monsters. I want to know about—"

"Humans, I know," Moblit finished with a sigh. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "I just—What if you get hurt and no one's around to help?"

"You're around," Hanji said, flipping over in the water and smiling at him. Moblit just shook his head.

"Just—explain to me why you go over there all the time," he said, waving a hand towards the pillars.

Hanji shrugged. She could still see the waving red and silver plants from here. "It's where I keep my human books."

Moblit's mouth fell open, opening and closing several times before he found his words. "You _kept_ those?"

"Of course I did," Hanji said. "I found a nice dry place for them."

"_You went above the surface?_"

Hanji took his hands into hers, shushing him. "Moblit, I keep telling you that I'm fine. See?" She twisted her tail until she was waving her fins next to his face. "Definitely not cut in half. All those warnings are wrong." Hanji dropped her tail, waiting for his reaction.

Moblit looked away. "It's still dangerous," he said, dropping his hands, but he sounded far less worried than before. "Those warnings couldn't have come out of nowhere, Hanji."

Hanji grinned. "And that's exactly what I want to find out. _Why_ do we have these rules when humans are so interesting?"

Moblit sighed again. "I remember when you used to say that they were only good at drowning. What's the point in trying to learn about them?"

"Because someday I'm going to go see them myself!"

Moblit's jaw dropped. "_Why?_"

"Why not?" Hanji answered with a smile.

The sea around them turned another shade darker, and Hanji looked up towards the surface. There was something else she'd wanted to do today, and she needed to leave now before she lost the rest of the light. Hanji clapped a hand on Moblit's shoulder. "I'm going to the eastern shipwreck if you want to join me!"

"The what?" Moblit said as she swam past him. "Hanji! The storm! We have to get inside the reef!"

"I won't take long!" Hanji waved to Moblit, then pressed her arms to her sides to gain speed.

She passed over the top of the reef, her shadow the only thing that broke its rainbow of colors. Fish and sea plants and intricate pieces of coral grew on the top, closest to the sun. In the few holes in the coral, Hanji could see the tails of the other members of her pod as the they moved through the many passageways that went through the reef. The storm would likely bring a change in the tides, so the pod would head deeper inside to let the coral soften the blow. In bigger storms, getting caught outside the reef would mean getting swept away.

Despite Moblit's sense of urgency, not all of the pod had retreated inside the reef just yet. Hanji spotted some younger merpeople playing just up ahead, giggling and chasing each other, taking turns hiding behind some fan coral. Their ignored parents were waving them over, casting concerned looks at the surface every few seconds.

Hanji changed course so that she would swim past the group rather than over them, but they spotted her anyway. The merchildren stared at her with wide eyes, some of the parents swimming over and scooping them up in their arms, glaring at Hanji. She smiled and waved at them as she passed, used to their reaction.

Once she'd passed them, one of the older merchildren picked up a piece of broken coral and flung it in Hanji's direction. However, their aim was low, and it hit the reef instead. Hanji didn't look back.

There was a steep drop in the seabed on the eastern side of the reef, and no matter how many times Hanji went there, she had to stop in awe. The contrast between the colorful coral and the sudden deep blue of the ocean was beautiful.

Even farther below, in the haze of the blue, was the shipwreck. Only its cracked mast rose up high enough to mark its location. It lay tilted to one side, the old portholes still visible in its rotting hull. Only at certain times of day did the sunlight hit just the right angle to penetrate the blue and reveal the body of the ship. On a good day Hanji would have about an hour to explore, but with the storm coming she couldn't be sure.

Hanji sighed. "I'll just have to make this quick then," she said to herself.

She dove down, not bothering to repress a shiver as the water got colder in the shadow of the reef. She made her way to the bottom of the wreck. On the underside of the hull was a gaping hole. Hanji swam through, careful to avoid the sharp corners where barnacles had grown over its wooden skeleton. She squinted into the darkness inside, only able to make out the outlines of doorways to the human rooms she'd visited before on brighter days. How fast was the sunlight fading?

But Hanji had explored the bottom of the wreck several times before, and could move through it based on memory and familiar shadows. She floated past the open doors that lead to empty rooms and carried straight on to the blockage in the center.

The broken piece of the mast had fallen through the deck ages ago, and bits of broken wood and coral that had grown around it blocked any further progress inside the ship. Hanji had spent a whole day once trying to find a different entrance, but the half of the ship that leaned up towards the surface was still intact. No broken portholes, no holes in the wood she could slip through. Hanji had hoped for enough light today to look for another way around the mast, but perhaps that had been too much to hope for with the storm clouds.

She stopped in front of the mast, folding her arms. She didn't want to give up when she'd only just arrived. Hanji's eyes scanned the wood as best she could in the low light, making sure that she hadn't missed anything, when something caught her eye. A little bit of light peeked through the blockage.

Hanji floated towards it. The light shone through a small hole in the wood, only a bit bigger than her eye. She pressed her face against it, the fuzz of decay tickling her cheek, and looked through. There were more beams in the passageway beyond, dark crisscrossing lines across her vision, but the light from the far end of the ship shone bright despite the clouds. Hanji grinned, her tail shaking with anticipation. If the visibility was that good, then she needed to get over there.

Hanji pulled back, looking up at the giant mast. It might be possible for her to move the beams, but she didn't want the mast to fall and crush the rest of the shipwreck with it. One of the ships to the North had collapsed when its base had shifted after a storm, and Hanji still mourned the loss of the possible human items that might've been inside. She didn't want to repeat the experience.

Rubbing her chin, Hanji looked back and forth between the mast and the wood planks beneath it. Judging from the light and the fact that the planks should've buckled underneath the weight of the mast a long time ago, Hanji guessed that something else held the mast in place. Hoping that she was right, she hooked her fingers around the plank with the hole in it and pulled.

For a second it held, but then broke off in her hands with a small crack. Hanji braced herself for the mast to start to fall, drawing up her shoulders around her ears—but it didn't. Tossing the plank to one side, now there was a hole big enough to squeeze through. Hanji wriggled her way through, only stopping to twist her neck so that she could see the mast. A thick net of coral stretched across the wood. Fish with larger eyes than Hanji had ever seen darted around it, not caring about the half-darkness. A low creaking began to echo through the ship, and Hanji continued on into the light.

She bent her tail so that she could drift over the fallen wood planks, glancing around the inside of the sunken ship with a smile. The sunlight wasn't just coming through the portholes. It cut through the cracks of the rotting planks that green algae had covered long ago, casting shifting beams of light inside.

Soon Hanji ran into an algae-covered door, the last bits of gold embellishment still shining through. Hanji squeezed her hands together, bouncing in the water. She put her hands in the center of the door, aware of her sudden heavy breathing, and pushed.

Green sea plants covered everything inside the room. They gleamed in the light, but the outlines of the furniture they'd grown over were still clear. A desk, a chair, and a chest of drawers sat in the room, the shape of their handles still visible. Hanji took a shaky breath and pressed her hands to her mouth to hold back her excited squeal. She'd never found a part of a ship this well preserved before.

The few tiny fish that were inside scattered when Hanji came closer, floating above the desk to examine it further. A glint of light caught her eye from the center. Hanji reached out with her fingertips, brushing away some of the algae. A glass oval rimmed with thin metal shone back up at her. Biting her lip in excitement, Hanji lifted the object off the desk, rubbing away at the rest of the algae until its true shape came to light. Hanji giggled to herself, her tail curling up towards the rest of her body as she held her prize closer to her face for examination.

The pair of glasses had some rust on it, but it had held up well despite being submerged in the wreck for who knew how long. Hanji turned it over in her hand, admiring every angle. It looked exactly like the pictures that she'd seen in her books. It wasn't a common item among humans, as far as she could tell, but Hanji had never expected to find something that she could wear. She opened the sides of the glasses one at a time, the joints much tighter than she'd expected. Hanji slipped the glasses over her ears and onto the bridge of her nose, eyes closed, letting out another giggle when she imagined the pod's reaction to one of their own following human customs.

When she opened her eyes, it felt like a jellyfish sting. Everything looked warped and stretched too thin. Hanji wrinkled her nose, and pushed the glasses farther down until she was looking over the top of them. Hanji sighed when her vision went back to normal, but didn't take them off. If humans could put up with it, then she could too.

Turning her attention back to the desk, Hanji could make out the handles on the side drawers as well. She reached out a few fingers to brush against them, but Hanji couldn't bring herself to open it out of fear of breaking it. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around the sides and gently pulled, the drawer coming loose with a cloud of algae.

There was nothing inside the first drawer. Or the second. Hanji stuck out her lower lip, wondering if she'd set her expectations too high. She pulled on the bottom and final drawer—and heard a thunk when something blocked it from sliding open. Hanji peered inside, spotting something like a box. She started to shake the drawer on its sides in an attempt to knock it free, not caring about breaking something anymore.

Somehow, Hanji found the right angle and it slid open. The box had a few traces of seaweed clinging to it, and Hanji could just make out a pattern of faded gold on its top, similar to the one on the door.

She lifted it out of the drawer with her fingertips, even more careful that she'd been with the glasses. The box was about the size of her palm with fingers outstretched, too small to hold a book. Hanji turned it over, finding the crease where the lid closed. She tried to open it, but some strange pressure from inside kept it shut. Frowning, Hanji pressed the box between her palms. Hands shaking, she dug her fingernails under the lid to try to pry it open—

The two pieces of the box broke apart in Hanji's hands a second later, releasing a large bubble from inside. Her eyes followed it up until it popped on the cabin ceiling. Hanji looked back down at the pieces of the box, wondering if the extra effort had been worth it.

Floating in the water was a glowing green stone. It had an oval shape and looked smooth all over, its only imperfection a small hole in the top where a lengthy thin sliver chain threaded through. The longer that Hanji stared at it, the brighter its glow became. She cupped her hands around it, not touching it just yet, letting the light play through her fingers. But it still retained its sea-green hue no matter how bright it grew. Hanji heard something like voices in the distance, but ignored them. She felt like she was being sucked into the stone, like she could float here and watch it forever—

"_Hanji!_"

Moblit's voice broke through the sound of whispering voices, and Hanji shook her head. The stone's light faded, and it began to sink through the water. Hanji caught it with one hand, looking at it again. The stone was clear; she could see the skin on her palm through the other side.

_Then where did the light come from?_ Hanji wondered.

"Hanji! Are you still here? We need to get back to the reef!"

Moblit's voice was close to one of the portholes. "I'm inside, Moblit!" Hanji shouted back. "Just give me another minute!" She glanced back at the stone again. After a moment's hesitation, she looped the chain over her head and around her neck twice to make sure that it would stay in place, the stone resting just below the hollow of her breastbone.

In another few minutes, Hanji was out of the wreck. She could see Moblit making nervous circles over the boundary between the reef and the drop-off towards the ship. The surface was becoming more gray by the minute, and Hanji could feel a stronger pull on her body as the tide reacted to the incoming storm. She waved towards Moblit as soon as she was sure he could see her. "Hey! Right here!" Hanji shouted.

Moblit paused in his circles and then dove down towards her, looking relieved. He stopped in front of her, grabbing her hands. "_Please_ don't rush off like that again," he said.

"I told you it would be fine," Hanji said, laughing. "See? I'm still okay."

Moblit looked back up at her. "But next time, can you just wait until the storm—" His face froze.

"What?"

"Hanji. What's on your face?"

She'd forgotten about the glasses. "Oh! These." Hanji tapped the sides of the glasses. "I picked them up inside the wreck. They're things that humans wear sometimes." She smiled. "Cool, huh?"

Moblit sighed, a stream of bubbles coming out of his mouth as he folded his arms. "Hanji, if you keep this up, then the pod will cast you out."

Hanji thought of the merchild who'd thrown the piece of coral. "They're just _glasses_, Moblit," Hanji said. "They're harmless." She tried to keep up her smile, but felt it falter a bit. "Besides… The pod is already scared of me. Exile can't be much different."

"Hanji…"

"If I cared what they thought, then I wouldn't have done it in the first place," Hanji said, shrugging. She looked back at Moblit to see that he was still staring at her with worry, wringing his hands. Hanji hit him in the shoulder, her smile coming back. "Let's go back before this storm hits."

Moblit nodded, swimming up and over the drop-off, Hanji following close behind. She wondered why he'd noticed the glasses but hadn't mentioned the stone. Hanji could feel it tapping against her chest with each beat of her tail as she swam through the water. Even though she'd just left the wreck, Hanji couldn't wait to get back. The books had never mentioned glowing human jewelry. That was definitely something worth researching.

Hanji followed Moblit down below the upper shelf of the reef and into the passageways below. Her curiosity would have to wait until after the storm.

* * *

Something was shining in Hanji's eyes. She scrunched up her face and rolled over, burrowing deeper into the kelp bed. Hanji tried to focus on the dull roar of the waves passing over the reef above. It didn't help. The light was following her.

Hanji groaned, opening her eyes in slits. It felt like the sun itself had found a way into her tiny cave inside the reef. She brushed off the kelp that she used to anchor herself while sleeping and rubbed her eyes, squinting at the light.

It was the oval stone again. This time its light was steady, more than enough to cast shadows on every angle of the coral walls. The glasses caught the light from the rock she'd set them down on, reflecting it back onto Hanji's face. Hanji grabbed them, rubbing her eyes again with her other hand while she tried to think of what to do. She couldn't sleep like this. Maybe wrapping the stone in some of the kelp would—

A scratching sound came from the ceiling, drowning out the sound of the waves. Hanji glanced up but saw nothing. She shrugged to herself. Maybe it was just a rock, or a small part of the reef had come loose in the storm.

But there it was again—claws scraping against the coral, sounding like something trying to get in. Hanji's fins twitched, and she folded her tail close to her body, cradling the stone to her chest. She waited, listening.

The third time it didn't sound like scratching. Whatever it was dragged its claws across the top of her cave, continuing on until the echo of the noise was lost in the sound of the waves. Hanji waited for a minute of complete silence to pass before she relaxed. She'd gripped the glasses so hard that the frames had left red marks across her palm.

But before she could start wondering what that had been, a long shriek echoed up through the entrance to the cave, making Hanji's gills stand on end. _Monsters._

In a flash of red, she saw the corpses of Isabel and Farlan again as well as the trailing blood on her arms. The intense desire to smash the monsters heads against the coral and see more of their black blood made Hanji smile for a moment, but another concern came from the back of her mind, overriding her bloodlust.

Moblit.

Hanji placed the glasses low on her nose again, not wanting to leave any of her human treasures behind. She closed a hand around the stone, hoping to dull its light a bit to a point where she could still see, but not bright enough that it would give her away. The light pushed out from between her fingers, making her hand glow red from the inside. That would have to be good enough.

Hanji paused before the entrance to her sleeping cave, looking around. It was impossible to see inside the reef at night. Normally that wasn't an issue; living here for the majority of her life meant that Hanji could swim through the passages with her eyes closed, but if monsters were inside, she needed to know where they were. And with their bulbous eyes, they'd have an advantage in the dark. Hanji had a sudden vision of one of them emerging from the shadows, teeth bared—

She shuddered, dropping one finger away from the stone and holding up her hand to light her way. Nothing. Hanji turned left and swam down the winding path through the coral heading towards the center, were Moblit had picked his sleeping cave. She expected to see other members of her pod on the way—everyone knew what monsters sounded like, and she'd expected panic—but the passageway was empty.

Hanji became so focused on what was in front of her that she scraped her tail against the coral wall. She winced and turned around to check the damage. It was a shallow cut, but the little bit of blood sent her into another flashback—_red, just like human blood. _

Moblit's earlier words echoed back at her. _If you keep this up, then the pod will cast you out._

Where had they all gone? Was she the last one to notice that the monsters had gotten into the reef? Had they left her behind? Hanji wasn't sure which was worse; that her pod didn't care about leaving her alone to deal with the monsters, or that she didn't really care if they had. The only one that she was attached to was Moblit.

Hanji opened another finger that she'd wrapped around the stone, shining it's light towards the next turn. Still nothing. Hanji arched her back around the turn, deciding that if Moblit's cave was empty, she needed to leave—

The stone's light flared in her hand, almost blinding her again. Hanji squinted and turned away from it, dropping it from her hand. In the same second, she saw the flash of light on scales. Her heart jumped, and Hanji pushed her tail in front of her, lashing out towards the monster. It grabbed her tail and she yelled, throwing her arm forward to hit it in the jaw—

—But Moblit ducked just in time. "Hanji!" he shouted, shaking her fins. "It's me! Calm down!"

"Then _say something_ next time!" Hanji shouted back. She leaned back as Moblit let her tail go, trying to take deep breaths to slow her heart down from the sudden energy rush. "I thought that you were a monster," Hanji mumbled.

"I guessed that," Moblit said. Hanji could hear the fear in his voice and sat back up.

"Where you looking for me?" she asked. "In the dark?"

Moblit nodded, and Hanji reached out and grabbed his arms, pulling him into a hug. He squirmed for a moment and then gave up, patting her on the back. "Sometimes I wonder how I ended up with a friend like you," Hanji said.

When she pulled back, Moblit was smiling. "Glad to know that I'm appreciated," he said. He squinted at the stone, which had started floating in the water between them. "What is that?"

Hanji readjusted her glasses. "Another thing that I found. In the shipwreck," she said.

Moblit crossed his arms. "I don't know why it does this!" Hanji continued, holding up a hand. "And I don't know how to stop it either. It's some weird human thing."

Moblit opened his mouth, but then shook his head. "You know what, nevermind," he said. "We need to get out of here."

"Right," Hanji said, twisting her tail so that she could turn around. "I'll lead the way." The stone flared as if in response, its light illuminating the coral passageways around them.

Hanji heard the current long before they got to the exit. It sounded like the wind above the surface, but Hanji decided not to mention that to Moblit for now. They still hadn't run into any other members of their pod. As the passageway widened out, Moblit caught up to her on her left side, taking her free hand and squeezing it. Hanji squeezed back. He had much more of an investment in the pod than she did, and she hoped that even if they would abandon her, they wouldn't leave him behind.

The water beyond the entrance was darker than the inside of the reef. The current pushed Hanji to the side, knocking her into Moblit. Their tails hit each other as they tried to regain their balance in the water. The light from the stone shone in a wide radius around them, picking up all the small particles that were being carried along in the current, making them shimmer before they disappeared back into the black water.

Hanji grabbed Moblit's hand again, both of them bobbing in the water as their fins worked to keep them in place. She looked around, hoping to see some of the pod nearby, but there was nothing but dark ocean. Moblit squinted at the stone, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. "How bright is that thing?" he said.

"I don't know," Hanji answered. "It woke me up."

"You mean you didn't hear—"

A shriek cut Moblit off, and Hanji spotted a flash of silver out of the corner of her eye. She turned, holding Moblit's hand tighter, and saw not one but several monsters emerging out of the darkness and heading their way.

"We need to get out of here," Hanji said, but before she could turn around, Moblit's back pressed into hers. "What are you _doing?_"

She heard Moblit take a shaky breath. "They're coming from over there too."

And as Hanji watched, more and more monsters appeared out of the deep until they'd formed a ring around them, waiting at the edge of the light cast by the stone. They were surrounded.

"What do we do?" Moblit said, his voice a higher pitch than usual.

Hanji shook her head even though Moblit couldn't see it. One or two monsters would've been easy, but Hanji knew that she couldn't take on this many. "I don't know," she said.

Hanji could see the reflection of the light off the monsters' eyes and teeth as they snapped their jaws at her. What were they waiting for? Monsters didn't play with their prey like this. Hanji set her jaw. Waiting it out was all they could do.

The chain twisted against her neck as the stone spun in the water, shining so bright that there wasn't any hint of its green color left. The light blocked out part of Hanji's view, making her nervous. She needed to see what the monsters were doing. The second one of them lunged, she'd have to make a split-second decision or risk losing Moblit.

Some of them were acting strange. A monster to Hanji's right was moving its head in a tight circle at the same speed the stone was spinning. As if it was…watching it. Hanji looked around again at all the monsters within range. She could see the stone's reflection in each of their eyes. Hanji squinted through the light, trying to see if her guess was right. It was. Their heads were moving too.

Hanji grabbed the chain with her free hand, unraveling it with her fingers. She turned her head, the chain pulling the stone with it to the opposite side of her body. Hanji suppressed a shiver as all of the monsters' heads turned at the same time.

"Moblit," she whispered. "Just go."

"But _where_ are we supposed to go?" he replied. Hanji could feel him shaking.

"Not us. You," Hanji continued. She found his hand and squeezed it. "On my count, just swim as fast as you can, and try to find the pod. I don't think the monsters will be bothering them."

"Hanji?"

"Please just do it, Moblit."

She felt his shoulders tense as he took a deep breath. "Okay." He squeezed her hand back. "But you're going to be right behind me, right?"

"Right." Hanji hated lying to him. "On three. One… Two…"

One of the monsters unhinged its jaw and lunged towards her, shrieking.

"THREE!" Hanji yelled. She dove forward through the horde of monsters trying to grab her, slipping through their claws, not looking back to see if Moblit had listened to her. Hanji swam as fast as she could, still hearing the screaming and snapping of jaws behind her. It was working. The monsters were following her. For whatever reason, they wanted the stone.

There was no reef, no shipwrecks in the distance. Hanji didn't know what direction she was going in, and she didn't care. She had to get the monsters away from the reef, from the pod, from Moblit. She would hide the stone's light again and lose them in the darkness of the water and the storm.

_And then what?_ a voice asked inside Hanji's head. _Will you go back?_

A chorus of shrieking picked up behind her, and Hanji started to laugh. "No!" she shouted into the rushing water. "I won't!"

_Then what will you do?_

"I'm going to see the humans!" Hanji shouted again.

The screaming of the monsters drew closer, but Hanji no longer cared about that either. The feeling of freedom hit Hanji for the first time in her life. She threw her arms out to her sides and made a steep shift upwards, continuing to swim as fast as she could, knowing that at some point she would hit the surface.

Hanji saw the reflection of the light first, broken across the underside of a wave. Then with a roar of wind, she broke through, flying up through the air, the rain pelting her back—_that's what rain feels like!_—a flash of lightning forking across the horizon. The clap of thunder shook her to the bones, and Hanji felt like she was suspended in midair as the water dipped below her. She screamed into the rain, "WAHOO!"

Something was wrong when she hit the water. A wave flipped Hanji over, and she didn't know which way was up. She thrashed her tail, but she felt the water lift underneath her. Another wave flipped her over, bubbles and foam filling Hanji's mouth. The water pressed around her, pulling Hanji in another direction. She couldn't move her tail or fight against the water at all. Hanji was the mercy the current and the waves that carried her.

She curled into a ball, the stone still lighting up her surroundings, although now the only thing Hanji could see was bubbles. She was getting dizzy from the movement, and stared at the stone instead, cupping it in her hands. The screaming of the monsters was long gone now, replaced with the sound of rushing water and crashing waves overhead.

Hanji's eyes burned and the chain had twisted deep into her neck, but sure was sure that the stone was still glowing brighter by the second. She could feel it burning against her neck now, the light filling her vision.

_If that is what you wish for_, a voice said.

Something sharp and hard collided with Hanji's head, the afterimage of the light still burning in her retinas when she lost consciousness.


	3. Bruise

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay! I ended up finishing this a lot later than I wanted to thanks to getting a cold that lasted a week. After that, I decided to take this through a couple more rounds of edits, since I really wanted to get this chapter right! Hopefully the fact that this chapter is another long one will make up for the wait.

As always, thanks for reading!

* * *

Hanji woke up to the sound of waves.

Feeling came second—her chest burned, starting from a sore spot right above her heart. Hanji groaned, her fingers digging into the sand beneath her. She felt it stick underneath her fingernails, the brittle texture scratching at her skin. Hanji wondered what was wrong with it. She was sure that it was sand, but she'd never felt sand like this before. It was so…dry.

The cold hit her next. It wasn't as biting as the pain in her chest, but it was chillier than the winter currents, and Hanji couldn't stop a shiver. The whistling in her ears almost covered up the sound of soft waves lapping against the sand. Everything below her torso was numb. Hanji couldn't feel her tail.

The breeze pulled at her hair, and Hanji listened to the hiss of the foam on the waves. Something was wrong, and not just with her tail. But Hanji couldn't focus past the pain in her chest to figure out what it was…

She gasped, opening her eyes and pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was dark. Hanji felt the world tilt below her and her vision went fuzzy for a moment. The breeze died down, but she could still hear the rush of air in her ears. She'd been washed ashore.

Hanji squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them wide, blinking away the bits of sand that were stuck to her eyelashes. She tugged at something that was pressing into the side of her head, and then recognized the circles around her vision. Somehow, the glasses had stayed on her nose. Hanji pulled them off, wondering how she'd stared straight through them with no pain, and realized that they were much lighter than before. She poked a finger through one of the circles. The lenses were gone. It took Hanji a slow second to realize that the glass had been knocked right out of them. Now, she only had empty frames. Pushing down her disappointment at damaging a piece of her collection, Hanji glanced around, not trusting herself to move just yet.

Wherever she was, it was still very dark. Aside from the rims of her glasses, all Hanji could see was the slight foam of tiny waves breaking several feet away from her and what looked like a wall of rock beyond that. It sloped down in a steep line, its middle broken in the center of a wide semicircle. As Hanji's eyes adjusted, she could see several shallow pools filled with seawater inside the rock wall. Waves pushed through the broken middle and splashed across the pools, the extra water lapping against the sand. Hanji looked to her opposite side, but the only thing there was a sheer cliff face, it's edge silhouetted in the washed-out blue of early morning high above her head. The rest of the sky still held the dark indigo of night. The sun hadn't risen yet.

Taking a deep breath, Hanji pushed herself up further, her chest pinching when exposed to the cold air. Bracing her arms against the sand, Hanji glanced at it, expecting to see something open and bleeding—but there was only a bruise in a strange oval shape. That reminded her of something…

Hanji patted her fingers to her throat, expecting to feel the chain around her neck, but there was nothing there but her own skin. She glanced down again and saw that two red lines trailed upwards from the top of the bruise, wrapping around her neck where the chain had been. Hanji frowned, remembering how it had twisted and cut into her neck, but she hadn't expected it to snap. The last thing she remembered was the burning light cupped in her hands. What could've happened to make it slam against her chest so hard?

Hanji glanced around, squinting in the half-light. There wasn't much more she could see on her elbows in the sand besides the tide pools and the cliff. No flash of green light, no monster screams. Maybe the storm tide had pulled it off her neck and carried it away.

The foam from one of the small waves managed to tickle her side, and Hanji realized how _dry_ she felt. The sand on her hands itched, and she could feel it drying on her arms as well. Hanji inhaled, pushing herself onto her side so that she could get her tail back into the water before her scales dried out. She sat up, leaning forward to grab her tail and dip it in the waves—but once again there was nothing but skin.

Hanji pulled her hands back like she'd touched a pufferfish by accident. Those couldn't be—could they? But sunrise was coming soon, and now there was enough light to let Hanji see. She couldn't deny it. The old warning came floating across her mind—

_Your tail will split in two, and you will die._

Legs. Merpeople could grow legs.

Hanji took a deep breath, reaching shaky hands towards her kneecaps. The skin felt the same way it did on the rest of her body, but stretched in different places over unfamiliar bones. Hanji ran her thumbs across the dip in the knee. They were _real_. Real legs, just like the ones humans had.

Hanji knocked her knees together, using her hands to turn them. Her calves made flat marks in the sand, much to her delight. But when Hanji let go of them, her legs flopped to the ground, unable to stay up on their own. Hanji tried to move her legs the same way she'd sent signals to her tail, but nothing happened. She tried to point her toes, turn her ankle, do _something_ with them, but her legs wouldn't respond. The only thing Hanji could feel below her hips was something like a dull buzzing that grew as the minutes passed. Hanji wondered if that was how legs were _supposed_ to feel. It wasn't fair to compare human legs to a tail, after all.

As the sky grew brighter, Hanji wrapped her arms underneath the bend of her knees, lifting them up and bouncing her new heels against the sand. A sensation like hundreds of tiny stingers moved up and down her leg, and Hanji found herself hyper-aware of the bones, muscles, and nerve endings. The bruise on her chest twinged, and in the same moment her legs didn't feel so disconnected from the rest of her body anymore.

Hanji let go of her legs, and they stayed in place this time. The toes on her right foot flexed at a single thought. Hanji grinned.

She could move them now, but could she stand?

Hanji drew her legs towards her chest, balancing on her fingertips. They sunk into the sand as she rolled forward on her new toes—and continued to roll until her face planted itself in the sand with a _thud_.

She turned her head, spitting out the sand in her mouth. This wasn't as easy as she'd guessed. Hanji rolled over, stretching out her legs in front of her, thinking. The tiny waves reached her heels now, and she pulled them back, surprised at how cold the water was.

Hanji tried again, pushing herself back into a sitting position. Her feet flat on the sand, she balanced in a squat, arms held out to her sides. Knees shaking, Hanji pushed her feet into the sand, unbending her legs. She rose from the ground bit by bit, her arms moving in tight circles to keep her balance. But just as Hanji started to worry about falling face-first into the sand again, her balance evened out and her legs straightened.

She wavered where she stood, her new legs threatening to give out underneath her at any second, but Hanji was caught up in the exhilaration of the new experience. She could see so far now, past the rocks surrounding the tide pools and out towards a wide expanse of white sand where the waves crashed down. Hanji took a deep breath, feeling bumps rise on her skin. She'd never seen anything like it.

Something flickered to the side, and Hanji turned her head to see what it was. Her eyes went wide, and for a moment she didn't breathe at all.

_Lights._ So many lights, some brighter than any she'd ever seen on a human ship, all clustered together and extending past where the sand ended for as far as Hanji could see. They ran up the tall sides of the buildings lining the edges of the beach, so much bigger than anything Hanji had ever seen in the human books. The lights glittered in her eyes in the early morning light, and Hanji felt her heart swell. There it was, waiting for her. The human world.

Hanji didn't realize that she'd been leaning forward until the view tilted, and her face met the sand again. But the lights of the human world were still shining in her mind, and Hanji couldn't stop smiling when she got back up.

_Walking,_ she thought, brushing the sand out of her eyes. _Next I have to try walking. I have to get over there and see it for myself._

The sky became lighter with every passing moment, opening up into a pale blue. Hanji bit her lip and tried to stand again—and failed, creating a new dent in the sand next to the other two.

The next several attempts went better, but Hanji couldn't figure out how to keep her balance and move one foot forward at the same time without falling. The lights in the human town went off one by one as she figured it out, making her first shaky footprint in the sand.

Hanji smiled and lowered her arms a bit as she tried for a second step, shifting her weight to her other leg in the moment it would take to move forward. Knee locked in place, Hanji swung her leg forward in a half circle, heel dragging across the sand. She set her foot down firmly in the sand, smiling at her own success.

The breeze picked up for a moment, still cold against her skin, but this time it also carried voices. Hanji tilted her head towards the sound. She couldn't make out the words, but it sounded like more than one person was talking. Steadying herself, she flapped her arms at her sides to work out her nervous excitement, biting her lip. Humans were coming! Real humans that she could talk to!

Hanji took a few more stiff-legged steps away from the tide pools towards the rest of the beach. The voices got louder. Hanji's heart felt like it had moved up into her throat. All of her questions and hopes for her first human conversation rushed into her mind at once. What was she going to say to them? How would she introduce herself? What should she ask them first?

But her frantic thoughts faded away when they came into view. All Hanji could do was stare.

They were both male, and both were wearing the same red shorts and carried long red objects with a word written on them in white that Hanji didn't recognize. One was much taller than the other, and had blond hair with a little bit of brown poking out underneath. He was broad enough that he almost made up two of the shorter one walking beside him. That human had black hair and his hands clenched into fists, and Hanji heard the angry tone in his voice long before she caught their words. Even though they weren't that far away from her, they hadn't noticed Hanji. They were too caught up in whatever they were arguing about.

"—Keep telling you that I don't need it. I'll choose my own damn days off."

The taller one laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. "Okay, Levi, I've got it. I won't interfere with your schedule again. I'm sorry."

"It's hard enough for me to pay my fucking bills without you deciding my vacation days for me," Levi continued, punching the blond man in the side. He stumbled but laughed, and Hanji wondered if they really were arguing.

She dug her heels into the sand so that she would stay upright. They made walking look so _effortless_. Hanji realized that she had the movement all wrong. The knees were supposed to bend a little, not stay straight all the way through.

As they got closer, Hanji's gaze kept floating back towards the one the taller human had called Levi. There was something in the way that he moved that was different from the other human—a lightness in his step that wasn't confidence or happiness, but something else she didn't have the right word to describe. He turned his head and Hanji saw that he wore the deepest scowl she'd ever seen. It was scratched into his face like the ridges on a shell, along with the circles under his eyes and the lines in his brow. Hanji couldn't imagine that face making any other expression other than general disgust at everything around him.

The next moment proved her wrong.

Cold light blue eyes locked onto hers, and he stopped, scowl dropping into a split-second look of surprise as his eyes went wide. "_Fuck._"

His hands flew up in front of his face as he turned his head away. "It's too early for this shit," he said, taking a few steps back.

The other human stopped. "Levi, what—_oh_." He looked Hanji's way and just as quickly dropped his gaze. She saw a hint of pink in his cheeks.

Hanji kept staring at them, not sure what they were so upset about. Then the breeze reminded her. _Oh yeah,_ Hanji thought. _Humans wear clothes._

Still covering his eyes, Levi tossed something fuzzy and red towards Hanji. It hit the side of her head and fell down into her arms. She held it up and it unrolled into some kind of cloth almost the length of her body. That strange word was written on it again.

"This isn't a nudist beach," Levi said, drawing Hanji's gaze back to him. He dropped his hand from his eyes, and Hanji saw that he'd gone back to frowning. "Cover yourself up before someone else sees you."

As Levi kept staring at her, the bruise on Hanji's chest grew hot, burning her skin like a jellyfish sting. Hanji felt like something was creeping over her mind, erasing all of her thoughts of excitement and confusion over meeting the humans.

_They can't see it. Don't let them see it._

Hanji held the cloth to her chest, bunching it up in her hand to cover the bruise. The strange sensation faded, her skin turning cool again once it was out of sight. Hanji sighed, dipping her head. But before she could even wonder what had happened, a strong grip tried to pull the cloth away from her.

Levi ripped it from her hand a second later, glaring up at her. Hanji laid her hand flat across the bruise, her heartbeat jumping with surprise. Levi opened up the red cloth and then threw it over her shoulders, pinning her arms underneath. He tucked in the edges at the front of her chest with a jerk that almost made Hanji lose her balance.

"Erwin," Levi called over his shoulder. "Stop being a prude and help me out."

Hanji repeated Erwin's name in her head several times so that she'd remember it. He cleared his throat before walking over to them, smiling at Hanji. However, she recognized that kind of smile. It was the same polite way that the other merpeople in the pod had smiled at her when her trips to the shipwrecks were still only rumors. She didn't trust it.

"Rose Beach does not open for another hour," Erwin said, sounding like he he'd repeated the same sentence innumerable times before. The smile didn't falter. "Also, as Levi has pointed out, it is not a nudist beach. If you will give us your name and room number, one of us will be happy to escort you back to the resort without the need for filing a police report."

Hanji continued to stare at Erwin. His eyes were also blue, but in a different shade. And she'd never seen such well-defined cheekbones before. She wondered if there were other humans with a facial structure like his.

As the silence stretched on, Hanji realized that they were waiting for an answer. She shifted her feet in the sand. Hanji had no idea what he'd meant by 'resort' and 'police,' and she'd hadn't known until now that rooms could have numbers. She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant—but nothing came out.

Erwin stared back, unblinking, as Levi clicked his tongue and looked away. Hanji opened her mouth again, and tried to say something, anything—but no sound came out of her throat. Her heart started to pound, the bruise on her chest turning hot again under her palm. What was wrong with her?

Levi sighed, folding his arms. "I don't care if you're not with the resort," he said. "Reporting this stuff is a pain. It's better for everybody if you just admit that you got wasted and then we can move on with our day."

Hanji swallowed. Everything in her throat _felt_ normal. She tried to hum—still nothing, even with her mouth closed. Levi's stare felt like it was burning a hole in the side of her head, but she didn't know how to answer him. Without her voice, Hanji didn't have any other way to explain herself.

"Fine. Your choice," Levi said. He unfolded his arms, walking behind Hanji. She tried to turn her neck to continue watching him, but hands on her back pushed her forward before she could catch a glimpse. Hanji stumbled on the sand, almost falling over, but caught herself when she remembered not to bend her waist so much.

"Drunk," she heard Levi mutter behind her.

"She didn't smell like it," Erwin whispered back.

"No one sober walks like that," Levi said.

"That might be because you shoved her," Erwin said, sounding like he was reprimanding a small child.

Hanji straightened her legs, but with her arms still pinned under the fuzzy cloth it was hard to keep her balance. She stumbled again when she tried to take another step, bracing herself for impact—but a hand grabbed her shoulder before she could hit the sand.

"We're heading for the lifeguard station," Levi's voice said behind Hanji. He pulled her back up and pushed her towards a small building on the beach that Hanji hadn't noticed earlier. It rose up from the sand on wooden beams, painted white with a stripe of red through the middle. Levi's hand stayed on Hanji's shoulder, steering her in the right direction with a tight grip when she faltered.

The building seemed to grow the closer they got to it, and Hanji found herself staring up at it when they arrived. It was large enough to be a home for several humans, she guessed. Maybe this was where these two lived. But Levi hadn't called it home—what had he said? 'Lifeguard station?' What did that mean?

Levi pushed her forward. "Keep walking."

They went around the side of the building, and Hanji stopped again in amazement. Here was something that she recognized from the books. A short flight of wooden stairs led up to the rest of the building. The books suggested that humans used stairs to get to higher places, but she'd never figured out how that worked.

Levi pushed against her back again. "Let's go."

Hanji stopped marveling at the stairs long enough to put her foot on the bottom step, wondering if it would move. Levi sighed again, grabbing some of the cloth in his fist. "I will drag you up there if I have to," he said. Looking at his frown, Hanji didn't doubt him.

Not sure what else to do but also sure that she would fall, Hanji lifted her leg, wobbling in place. The bottom of her foot landed on the next step up with a soft, wooden _thunk_ and Hanji braced herself for it to start moving. But nothing happened.

Hanji hesitated, and then moved her other foot next to the first one. The step still didn't move, but now she was a little higher up than before. Hanji looked up towards the top of the stairs, and it clicked together in her brain.

Smiling, she looked over her shoulder to see the humans' reaction, but there was only Levi's glare and Erwin with his arms crossed. Hanji's grin faded as she realized that stairs were nothing special. However, she still celebrated internally with every step up she took without falling. Hanji ignored Levi's steady grip on her shoulder as a factor in her success.

The inside of the building was just one wide room with panes of glass on one side that looked out over the ocean in one wide window. More objects that Hanji didn't recognize were scattered across the long dark-colored desk in front of the glass, including a black rectangle with a stick pointing out of the top and what looked like two stunted telescopes attached in the middle. A table was pushed against the wall on the opposite end of the room, piled high with white circles and more of the red objects. The word marked across them became clear. _Lifeguard, _it read. But Hanji still couldn't guess what that meant.

Levi let go of her shoulder, walking to the back table and reaching for a box that sat under it. He pulled out some clothing and walked back to Hanji, shoving it into her chest with a scowl. "Put these on," he said, continuing past her and towards Erwin, who'd taken a seat at the long desk.

Hanji didn't catch the clothes in time, and they fell to the floor in a heap. She squatted down to pick them up, her new ankles shaking under the strain. Hanji rolled up on the balls of her toes to keep her balance. The flat surface was more difficult than the sand. The red cloth slid off the side of her shoulder, exposing the bruise on her chest. Hanji clapped a hand over it, glancing over to see if the humans were still watching her.

They weren't. Levi was leaning against the desk with his arms crossed, looking at Erwin. He'd just picked up the black rectangle, holding it close to his mouth. "Keith? Keith, come in, we've got a bit of a trespassing problem," Erwin said into it.

"And a streaking problem," Levi added. "I'm going to have to disinfect that towel now that naked tourist ass touched it."

Erwin didn't say anything in response, but frowned at the black rectangle. "He must've turned it off," he said. "Or he's in a meeting."

Levi's eyes flickered back towards Hanji. "I said, _put those on_," he repeated.

Hanji nodded, her now-dry hair starting to fall into her face. She stared at the clothes he'd shoved into her hands, not sure what to do. She held up the white piece with one hand, wondering which hole went where. Was this a shirt? She was pretty sure it was, but…

Hanji opened her mouth to ask, but once again only the sound of her breath came out of her mouth.

She sucked in her lips, hot tears poking at the edges of her eyes. She was _here_, with real humans, but Hanji felt further away from their world now than when she'd been under the surface of the ocean.

Hanji wiped the tears away and pulled the white piece of clothing over her head, hoping that her guess was right. After a few seconds of trying to shove her head through what turned out to be the armhole, the shirt settled around her. Cloth on skin was a strange sensation, but Hanji couldn't say that she disliked it. The other piece of clothing was wider and dark blue, with only two holes. Hanji slipped the shorts over her legs, standing up while she did so. She was getting used to shifting her weight around.

"Hey."

She jumped at Levi's voice and turned towards him. What had she done wrong now?

He took a few steps forward, pointing at his own neck. "How did you get those?"

_The bruises._ The desire to keep them hidden rose up again in her mind like the tide, but then receded just as quickly. _He only means the neck, the neck is fine, it's the other one, that one he can't see—_

Hanji turned away from Levi anyway, pulling the collar of the shirt tight around her neck. She heard Levi's footsteps cross the floor and flinched when he put a hand on her shoulder again.

"Just say something already."

His tone hadn't changed, and when Hanji looked back at him she saw that his expression hadn't moved either. But there was a different feeling in his words somehow. Hanji couldn't say how she knew, but she did. Still, she kept her grip on the bunched-up cloth that covered the bruise on her chest.

Levi dropped his hand but kept looking at her. "What's your name?" he asked again.

_Hanji_, she wanted to say, opening her mouth. When nothing came out, the tears came back again. Hanji tried to blink them away.

Levi looked down for a moment before meeting her gaze again. "Can you say anything?" he asked.

Hanji shook her head.

"You can only answer yes or no questions?"

She nodded.

"_Fuck._" His mouth twisted. "Erwin, she's mute," Levi said, calling over his shoulder again.

Hanji rubbed the heel of her hand into her eye, pressing the last of her tears away. She heard footsteps cross the floor again, and when she'd finished wiping her face with her hand, there was Erwin, no longer stoic but looking at her with a kind expression and a slight smile.

He started moving his hands in front of her, dragging his fingertips through the air, and making different shapes between his fingers and palms. Hanji felt her mouth fall open with fascination. But as she continued to stare, Erwin slowed and stopped within a few seconds. Hanji glanced up at him, wondering why, and saw that his brows were pulled together in concern.

"What is it?" Levi asked.

Erwin met Hanji's gaze. "Do you know ASL?" he asked.

Hanji blinked. She wanted to ask what that meant, but had to settle with shaking her head. Erwin put a hand to his chin, frowning.

"We can't talk to her?" Levi asked him.

"Well, not through sign language, no," Erwin said, walking back to the desk. He pushed some things around, casting his glance around for something while Levi and Hanji watched. Hanji released her grip on the part of the shirt that covered the bruise and let her arm fall to her side.

Erwin came back with something that Hanji recognized—paper and a pencil. "It's not practical, but that's the best that we can do for now," he said, handing them to her.

Hanji held them like they would break at any second, running a thumb over the paper. It had a different texture than her books—it felt smoother, more solid. It wasn't wavy, and wouldn't tear at the slightest touch. Smiling, Hanji gripped the pencil in her fist. She'd always wanted to try this, but she'd never found anything that could be used for writing in the shipwrecks.

Hanji balanced the pad of paper on the palm of her hand and held the pencil above it, still gripped in her fist. She glanced up, almost surprised to see that they were still watching her. Levi crossed his arms, tilting his head a little to the side. Erwin had gone back to an unreadable gaze. Hanji realized the importance of this moment. This would be her first true contact with humans. They wanted to know who she was, and she wanted to ask them questions about their world. She had to make it count.

Hanji lowered the pencil towards the paper, dragging it across the page in an approximation of letters. She bit the corner of her lip in concentration. Writing was much harder than she'd guessed. She wasn't even sure if these were the right letters for her name, but she was still aware of the two pairs of eyes watching her and knew that she had to try.

"She can't write," Levi said.

Hanji's hand jumped at his voice, scratching a dark line across the page and off the edge. Hanji pouted at her failed 'H.' Even without the line, it was too slanted, and the middle line didn't even touch the sides.

"Let her be, Levi," Erwin said, but Hanji picked up the slight doubt in his voice as well.

She started again, moving down to the remaining clean space on the paper. When the 'H' was to her liking, she started on the 'A,' focusing on not making the slopes of the lines too close together—

For a little while, the room faded away. Hanji's whole world focused on the paper and shaping the letters that would let her communicate. She slipped again—on the 'N' this time—but didn't pause. Hanji moved down the page again and tried for the third time, getting faster at forming the letters.

Satisfied, she held up the pad of paper to show them her results. But only Levi still stood there, his arms crossed. At some point in her concentrated trance, Erwin had walked back over to the desk facing the wide window. Light filled now filled the blue sky, the sunlight reflecting off of the ocean water.

Levi took the paper from her hand without a word, squinting at it. "Han…" he started, trailing off and staring at it for a few seconds more. Hanji pulled at her own fingers. Was her writing that hard to understand?

"Hanji," Levi said, still squinting at the pad of paper, but with that one word Hanji felt something bloom inside her chest. She smiled, nodding, pointing a finger at herself. Levi's eyes followed her movements, and then he crumpled up the paper in his hand. "Well. That's one mystery solved."

Hanji nodded again, still smiling, the euphoria of her first real communication with a human buzzing inside her. She tried to remember more letters, more words, so that she could answer their next question the best that she could.

"Okay," Levi said with a slight sigh. "Hanji. Are you from around here?"

She shook her head.

"Did you come here with someone who _is_ staying at the resort?"

Hanji shook her head again. She wanted to know what they meant by 'resort.' It seemed very important to them.

The frown on Levi's face grew deeper. The feeling of lightness that Hanji felt when he'd said her name was fading away. They were at another roadblock. She didn't know what to do to make his concerns go away.

The black rectangle exploded with noise on the front desk. Hanji jumped back a few steps, dropping the pad of paper. It scattered across the floor, bending some of the pages. Erwin and Levi didn't react at all, although Hanji saw Levi's eyebrow twitch when he looked down at the mess of papers.

Erwin picked up the rectangle and the noise sounded again, but this time Hanji caught something like a distorted voice coming from it. She couldn't guess what it was saying. Erwin put it back down on the desk and looked at Levi. "Keith wants me to report in," he said. "What do we do about her?"

"Who fucking cares anyway," Levi said, picking up the papers off the floor. "Let's just send the nudist home."

Erwin nodded with a slight smile, standing up. "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said, looking at Hanji. "Just wait here until then."

Hanji listened to Erwin walking down the steps as Levi picked up the last piece of paper from the floor. He straightened them in his hands, tapping the edges against his palms, but stopped when he noticed Hanji staring at him. His eyes narrowed.

"What kind of shitty glasses don't have lenses?" Levi asked.

Hanji touched the side of her frames. Levi shook his head. "Forget it," he said, walking over to the front desk. He placed his palms on top of it, leaning out towards the window. "Tch. Those kids are out there already."

Hanji craned her neck around Levi to see what he was looking at. Through the windows, out into the small waves hitting the sandy edge of the beach, Hanji could see several humans running around in the foam, splashing each other, and wading deeper into the water until she could only tell them apart by hair color—two brown, one black, one blond. She could hear their happy shouting just above the crashing of the waves.

The bruise on Hanji's chest pulsed. Something echoed in the back of her mind. It sounded familiar, but Hanji couldn't quite make out the words. She couldn't take her eyes off the waves. The longer she stared at the ocean, the more a glowing green light appeared around the edges of her vision. Hanji shuddered.

She needed to get back in the water.

That desire overcame every other thought in her mind. Something in her chest, right below the bruise, felt like it was pulling her forward. _She needed to get back in the water._

Hanji headed for the door that led to the stairs, much more comfortable on her feet all of a sudden. The green light made everything feel far away. She only had to focus on one thing. _Get to the ocean._

"Hey. Where are you going?"

Hanji felt Levi grab her upper arm, but she pulled away before his words could even sink in. They sounded like echoes above the surface of the water. She had to focus to hear him, and Hanji wasn't interested in focusing.

She was at the bottom of the stairs before she even registered that they were there. The sand felt more real to her, gritty and a little warm thanks to the morning sun. Hanji turned her head towards the water and the light around her vision burst. It seemed like the ocean was coming to her, but then Hanji heard the beating of sand under her feet and felt the vibrations through her new legs. She was running.

Hanji heard Levi yelling something behind her. The kids in the water turned their heads to look, but Hanji didn't hear or care about any of it. A small wave hit her legs, spraying water up into her face. Hanji laughed. She wasn't sure if the pull on her legs was from the receding wave or if the feeling in her chest had grown. Hanji waded deeper into the water. A wave crested over her head and she dove into the ocean, feeling it envelope her, welcoming her home.

The water near the beach was cloudier than she was used to, but Hanji pushed ahead anyway, diving underneath the kicking legs of the humans above her. She wanted to continue out into open water, but the pull in her chest forced her to look up, to see how close the humans were, close enough to grab one of their legs and—

_Drown them_.

The voice that she hadn't been able to hear on land was clear now, so distinct that Hanji looked around to see who else was there. But no, the voice was inside her own mind. The pull on her chest increased as one of the humans turned in the water, kicking their leg close enough for her to grab it. _Drown them_.

Hanji shook her head, hoping that she could make the voice go away. She felt compelled to do it, in the same way that she'd felt drawn back into the ocean. But this—she couldn't _hurt_ someone. The light still hadn't left the edges of her vision, tinging everything green. Her head hurt.

_Drown them. Drown them. Drown them._

Hanji twisted in the water. Maybe if she couldn't see the humans, the voice would stop.

_Drown them drown them drown them drown them drown—_

Hanji covered her eyes and kicked, trying to get away. She expected to feel her human legs, but instead Hanji felt one singular familiar mass extending past her torso. She lifted her hands away, needing to see it to believe it.

Her tail was back. Even in the cloudy water, her green scales still caught the light. Hanji ran a hand over them, tracing the familiar bumps and grooves, and for just a moment, the light and the voice receded.

Taking advantage of her clear mind, Hanji stretched her tail out and swam away, leaving the humans behind. The further she got from them, the more the voice faded until there was no sound but the movement of the water and the sand.

The ocean floor dipped a little, leading into a forest of kelp. Hanji swam just above the top of it, the longer plants brushing against her tail. Her mind raced, trying to process everything that had just happened. She'd turned into a human…but could still go back to being a mermaid?

And if her tail had come back…

"AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa," Hanji shouted into the kelp. The plants swayed back at her to the beat of the waves.

Her body was back to the way it was before. But why had it changed? And where had that voice inside her head come from, the one demanding that she—

_Drown them._

Hanji shook her head. What was going on?

She turned her tail, swimming to the side. Hanji wasn't sure how far away she was from the beach now. She looked up and saw foam from a wave breaking against a rocky outcropping. It looked like there was enough room for her to sit and get her bearings. Hanji swam up towards it.

When she broke the surface, Hanji realized that she recognized this place. It was the high rock wall on the other side of the tide pools where she'd woken up. The water wasn't murky after all—the tide had kicked up a lot of sand, which had confused her. She hadn't gone that far after all.

Hanji pulled herself up onto the side of the rock, letting the sun beat down on her. The waves threw ocean water over her tail in a steady pattern, keeping her cool. Hanji pulled at the shirt. It was soaked through now, clinging to her like an odd second skin. But it had done better than the shorts. The thick material stuck to her scales, ripped straight through the middle by her transformation back into a mermaid. Hanji flapped her tail to shake it off, a little disappointed at the waste. She wondered what Moblit would've thought if he had seen—

Hanji paused, fingers digging into the edge of the waterlogged shirt. She hadn't thought of Moblit at all until now. Her gut clenched.

Hanji peeled the shirt off her back, shaking it out in the beach sun while questions created by guilt ran through her mind. Did Moblit make it back to the pod? Had the monsters left him alone? And was he still expecting her to come back? She laid the shirt flat against the rocks, high enough that the spray of the waves couldn't reach it. Hanji looked out towards the horizon, where the deep blue of the ocean and the light blue of the sky met in a single line.

She had no idea which direction would take her back to the reef.

Other thoughts took over. Hanji thought of the voice inside her head, of losing her own, Levi's frown, the strange pull to go back to the ocean, the way that he'd said her name. She still had so many questions about the human world, so many things that she wanted to see.

Hanji pulled her tail up to her chest, wrapping her arms around it. Her scales poked the inside of her elbows. She took a deep breath, and exhaled as the next wave crashed down.

She guessed that it would take a few hours for the shirt to dry with all the sea water soaked into it. She'd need it when she went to see the humans again. Hanji hoped—wished—that Moblit would understand.

The bruise still hurt.


End file.
